Secret In The Dirt - Golf's Greatest Social Network

Bradley Hughes wrote, here are my specs
3 iron. loft 21. lie 54. D3
4 iron. loft 24. lie 54.5. D3
5 iron. loft 28. lie 55. D6
6 iron. loft. 32. lie 56. D6
7 iron. loft 36. lie 57. D6
8 iron. loft.40. lie 58. D8
9 iron. loft 44.5 lie 59. D8
Wedge. loft 49 lie 60 D8
Sand Iron loft 55. Lie 62 E0
Lob Wedge loft 60 Lie 62 E0

I am curious, where did you find wedges with that high of a swing weight? Did you have to special order them or load them up with lead tape?

Got my vokey wedges up to E0 like this:



200" of lead my on my whole set

Hey Bradley-

First time ever we closed the range today due to wind- benches overturned, mats flipping over...I even tried to walk to the tractor and the wind stopped me dead in my tracks- although at 5'7" and 120 pounds, that would not be too hard to do

Got me thinking...is there a certain wind speed, including gusts I suppose, in which a tour event would be cancelled. I mean is there a certain defined number. Just curious.

Hey Festus you old rangerat
Only times I have played events that have been stopped due to wind have been when the ball wont rest on the greens. So I would say no real wind gauge measurement except playability based on the ball staying put on the green

Festus, I believe if you measured all the wind being blown over on the Ultimate thread that would be just about the right amount.

The Australian PGA turned 100 years young in 2012 and today I played in the Victorian Section Celebration event at Royal Melbourne on the West Course.
Royal Melbourne is my favourite golf course in the World and site of the most recent Presidents Cup.
The terrain, the bunkers, the green complexes, the placement needed to attack or defend...it is remarkable.
Shot a nice 5 under 67 to grab the cash too


The second shot on the par 5 Fourth Hole



The maginfiecent 175 yard 5th Hole



View from the 5th tee...looking out over the 2nd green of East Course towards the 6th green of the West

Congratulations for nice round Bradley... I think soon you can't stay away from the tour with that game you got

I know this was mentioned before, but I thought I would share this again. If anyone is searching for a modern wood that can be bent flatter, you need to check out Wishon Golf.

Wishon Golf designed the 739CCG driver and 929HS fairway woods both with their hosels made from a specially softer alloy to allow clubmakers to bend the hosels +/-4 degrees in any direction to offer their golfers a much wider range of custom fitting for the lie and the face angle.

For the 739 CCG driver with its softer hosel, it can hit a flatter lie angle of 53-54 degrees. For the 929HS 3 wood, it can achieve a flatter lie of 55*, for the 929-4w a lie of 56*, for the 929-5 a lie of 57 and for the 7w a lie of 57.5.

Here are links to information about the 739CCG driver and 929HS woods as follows:

1. 739CCG Driver - wishongolf.com/designs/drivers/739-ccg/

2. 929HS woods - wishongolf.com/designs/fairway-woods/929hs/


I have no financial interest in the company. But since I started the modules, I wanted to buy some clubs that fit the pattern. This looks like one good option.

Thanks Jacob the head look to have a nice shape. However, remember weight is also important in Bradley's method so be careful to choose equipment that is heavy enough.

Good point, and one that I had not considered. I was just happy to find a modern driver that was not sitting at 60 degrees upright.

What is a good weight for a head? Maybe I could add hot melt or something of the like. Additionally, anyone have any thoughts on shafts for this pattern?

Jacob,

I can't say...why don't you come over to the dark side and get a persimmon or two or three! All are mine are weighted to Erickson's specs...I think 14 oz. Modern drivers are 13 oz or so I think. An oz doesn't sound like much but you can really feel it. You don't have to play tournaments or anything serious with the persimmon, but they make great training clubs. I believe this is what Bradley does. He practices with persimmon and plays tournaments with a modern driver.

I only use persimmon at the moment. After learning how to hit it...you won't be able to miss the fairway with your modern driver!

P.S. Bradley was that 67 with a persimmon or a modern driver? Since there was some cash on the line I am guessing you pulled out the modern stuff.

What do you shoot at St Andrews Beach Hugo? I live 5 mins from the course, some of the best short par 4's in the country! If you ever want a game at The National hit me up

@GRADY
No I did not use a persimmon for that event......
We did have a hickory long drive hole and a hickory nearest the pin challenge also on two holes. That was interesting to see how long you had to wait to give some oommpphhh to the clubhead to have any control whatsoever of it. Not sure how great the couple of hickory clubs they had laying on the tee to use were... not the best I am sure but that was fun. Actually hit not a bad shot on the par 3 hickory hole...175 yards...got it about 12 feet away so that was cool

@BRADOWEN
Yes...St.Andrews Beach was a great track, especially for a public course. Tom Doak designed, did a marvellous job. Shot 69 there....not bad first time around as there is a lot of local knowledge needed to feed approaches into the holes via the landscape, so look forward to playing there another time and trying to better that.

Steve Hjortness wrote:


Had them put tungsten weight down the hosel.....lead tape is no drama also as Brad O pointed out.

You will also find clubs with longer hosel areas will be weightier also because of the extra steel used.
Something like a Callaway X?? whatever will have minimal headweight as the shaft is more or less meeting the head near the sole......so they are using very little steel and then whipping the back out also to make a cavity which makes it even lighter.
Quite sad really that scientists in wind tunnels are now designing clubs instead of real golfers who knew the main ingredients of designing a club for the best results and swing advantages.
Even something as simple as having your clubs bent flat (like I suggest)...gives the iron an 'underslung' bias where the shaft if extended out through the end of the hosel, would come closer to the centre of the face .....totally forgotten and not thought of....this keeps the head from twisting
Yet.instead of this they make them upright with no hosel where the shaft is just going straight down the heel of the club and promoting the clubface to twist and preferably shut down at strike.....

Will have to dig out a pic reference to show what I mean by underslung....when I can get to it.

Well found a pic describing underslung quicker than I thought I would

Top photo is an 'underslung' setup where the shaft would (if extended) be out near the center of the face

Bottom photo is a normal club where shaft just runs down the hosel and would make the C.O.G in the heel




The underslung design helps avoid club face twisting and deviation......the other
Helps nothing except promoting a hook to a good player and trying to turn a slice into a straight shot for your poor player
Another example of 'Band Aid design'.... again in a clubmakers efforts to hide a golfers mistakes and send them farther down the path to golf swing oblivion as their swing continues to deteriorate to try suit this ill suited club, that is delaying and hindering any opportunity for their swing to evolve into a better machine

there is a very crude but simple test anybody can do to figure out what their irons would biased to on their own thru impact. place it on a table so that the club head hangs off the table edge and make sure nothing prevents the shaft to turn freely with head weight acting on it. approach and look at it so that you are facing the sole of the club directly. on most irons what you gonna see is the face is pointing upwards. the ideal neutral club would point the sole straight downward perpendicular or almost perpendicular to the ground from that position. i havent seen one that points dead straight but classic design 1/2/3 irons should be pretty close. the more that face points upwards the more to close bias it has. you would see more of it with higher lofted irons like PW because the loft would shift COG further back.

Anton,

Could you post a picture of this? That might help me understand...

sorry, never been good with explanations, here is that picture for you. from left to right they are 3 iron CB with moderate amount of offset, 3 iron MB with very little offset about 2mm or so, P iron with no offset and actually a tiny bit of onset. lofts on both 3 irons are identical. yellow lines are there to help with spotting them angles.

Bradley,

(congrats... on the CASH !)

I noticed your swingweights going lighter on the long irons.
I understand the heavier swingweights on the wedges but am curious if you will explain the preference for the long irons going lighter.
(I'm monkeying around with a new set and sorta prefer constant weight even into my hybrid and wonder if I'm missing out on something).

(anyone can answer though)

Phily,

They will be a closer MOI match the way Brad has them set up, although my bet is that he just liked the feel of it better.

Flowing deadweight through the set also. The shorter the shaft the more head weight you can afford.
I try work backwards in overall deadweight also by half oz per club to keep a consistent run through the set.
And that is half the battle with todays woods- you run your set nicely through and then next minute they give you a driver (and fairway woods) that are inches longer and ounces lighter. It is like swinging a fly swatter and causes a lot of problems for people as the feel thru the set gets lost.

FYI....For those who have not already discovered it, here's a link to Dave Tutelman's MOI approximation/matching method using only a swingweight scale.

www.tutelman.com/golf/design/swingwt4.php#sw_scale

Cool pic of young Nicklaus compared to Hogan.... just goes to show dynamics are different to appearances sometimes....especially when we watch a swing and get sidetracked by paths, backswings, etc... all the greats just about matched up to a tee where it mattered most.





And just for fun another one of Nicklaus and myself from 1984

Bradley, I just want to say that thanks to the information on gear in this thread I bought some old Hogan brings and had them bent 4* flat. Yesterday was my first round with them and I shot 83, which isn't great, but I had 39 putts in that on 17 greens cos I holed out a wedge on a par five. I've never felt more comfortable with my irons. Now, if I can only find a driver that works and somebody can tell me how to putt I'll be fine!